Who has really gone "well over the line," Rick Santorum or Barack Obama?

Former White House Press Secretary and current campaign adviser Robert Gibbs is alleging that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum went "well over the line" when he questioned Obama's Christian values.  Gibbs told ABC's "This Week" that it's time to get rid of this mindset in our politics that, if we disagree, we have to question character and faith."  See here.

If Robert Gibbs really believes that Rick Santorum went "well over the line" by merely questioning Obama's so-called "Christian virtues," he must then concede that Barack Obama obliterated that line when he said that Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who are opposed to homosexuality on moral grounds are clinging to "worn arguments and old attitudes." See here.

Where was Mr. Gibbs when Barack Obama said, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.."  If we are not supposed to question character or faith, why was Mr. Obama questioning the character and faith of average Americans who live in "a lot of small towns in the Midwest"?

I've noted before at this Blog that Barack Obama imposes a standard on others which he refuses to live up to himself.  See here.  And it would seem that Robert Gibbs would also hold others to a higher standard than he expects from his boss.  Mr. Gibbs should reflect very carefully on what the philosopher Plato had to say in Book I of his Laws (635a): "We invite you to criticize our institutions without reserve. One is not insulted by being informed of something amiss, but rather gets an opportunity for amendment, if the information is taken in good part, without resentment."

In the meantime, I would like an explanation as to how Barack Obama may be considered a Christian when he has rejected the teaching of Sacred Scripture.  I would really like to hear Mr. Gibbs' explain that one.  I just love creative fiction.

Peekaboo civility and a definition of what is "rational" from the White House

It was just over a week ago that President Obama and the White House were calling for a return to civility and calm rhetoric in American public discourse.  Now the White House is calling the mental health of those who don't believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii into question, suggesting that such people are irrational.  White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, during Monday's White House briefing, said, "I think rational people have - have long ago, many when they first saw and heard the president, come to the conclusion of his citizenship."  See here.

But as Dr. Kreeft has reminded us, "Usually, people seem to choose what to believe not by looking at the evidence but by looking at ideological labels, especially 'liberal' or 'conservative,' or by asking which group of people they want to be associated with, or by vague feelings and associations evoked by an idea within their consciousness, rather than by looking at the idea itself and the reality it points to outside their consciousness."  Isn't this exactly what Mr. Gibbs is suggesting happened?  He suggests that many people, "when they first saw and heard the president," came to "the conclusion of his citizenship."

Well gosh darn, that's a really rational approach.  I saw and heard Barack Obama speak and came to the conclusion that he was a U.S. citizen.  And this even though his birth certificate cannot be produced.

Not only does civility come and go at the White House, so does rational thought.